November 6, 2009

With the temperature dipping close to the freezing mark this week, I decided it really was time to finish cleaning up the garden. After all, what chance was there that those tomato plants, practically bare of leaves, were producing the energy needed to turn all those green tomatoes red?

In all my years of growing tomatoes, never before did I have such a large stock of green ones left on the vine. A quick Google search confirmed what I suspected: tomatoes need temperatures far warmer than what was forecast for Larchmont.

In past years I’d had only limited success with my end-of-season tomatoes. And since our house is now on a low-fat/nothing fried diet, the fried green tomatoes we’d enjoyed in previous years were out of the question.

The first day I picked only the healthiest looking tomatoes, ones that had few blemishes and were large enough to probably taste pretty good if they ever turned red. Into a paper bag they went. Sure enough, two days later, half were either already red or well on their way. We ate one that night and it did, indeed, plant a sweet kiss of summer as we ate it.

So I took the plunge and brought the rest of them inside. I discarded those that were simply too small or bruised to be of much help, but the rest, ugly as they are, are now in a paper bag on the counter. I suspect a day devoted to making and freezing tomato sauce is in the not very distant future.

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A seasoned communications professional with more than 25 years of experience in media, public relations, business communications and website development, Emily recently "rewired" and is now writing, consulting, and spending as many hours as possible in her garden.